How many "Apples" in your country?

At the peak of the US corporate earnings reporting season, Apple Inc. reported record revenue and profit for the 4th quarter of 2014 calendar year (or Q1 2015 fiscal year which began in the US in October 2014). Now the Apple Inc. has market capitalization of about 640 billion dollars, which is larger than the GDP of such countries as Sweden, Belgium, Finland, Norway, Venezuela, Algeria and many others (painted in shades of red on the map). US and China are as large as 27-28 AAPL's market caps. India is about 11 "Apples". Japan is 7.5 and the Germany is 5.7 only.

2014 fiscal year was finished with another all-time high in overall corporate profits, both in nominal terms and relative to GDP. Since the end of last recession, profits provide significant contribution to overall US GDP growth. But is this situation any sustainable and just how long it may last? Maybe present year will bring some answers.

Check the graphs below the page to see how US corporate profits evolved over time. You also can note that corporate profits declines for 2 or more quarters tend to precede recessions (see barchart at the bottom).